


today, tonight, always

by Evening_Winds



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Idiots in Love, M/M, Miscommunication, sort of. kind of. you'll see, they're so dumb that it almost physically hurt me to write this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:42:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26019745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evening_Winds/pseuds/Evening_Winds
Summary: Marriage. That’s what Raihan had said, right? Marriage.Marri- -“What?!”- - -aka leon has always been a hopeless romantic and wanted a traditional proposal. alas, his boyfriend is too practical for such things. (unless…?)aka two massive dorks fumble their way through an unforgettable night
Relationships: Dande | Leon/Kibana | Raihan
Comments: 17
Kudos: 142





	today, tonight, always

**Author's Note:**

> me: wouldn’t it be nice if, for once, i could do something other than write fics in my spare time. i’ve posted over 100k words in total already. what the heck. this isn’t what i signed up for back in january  
> also me, working on four fic ideas at the same time: hehe raileon brain go brrrr :)
> 
> all my other wips are subtly or not-so-subtly Sad so i wanted to write something silly and cute
> 
> the usual caveat: unbeta’d + EFL

“Rai! Get over here already, the view’s so beautiful!”

Leon had run ahead as soon as the lookout point had come into view, unable to contain his excitement. Raihan had shouted after him, telling him to please be careful and watch his step. Obediently, Leon had slowed down at the words. But only a little, just enough to appease his boyfriend.

And now, while he waited for said boyfriend to catch up with him, Leon leaned on the railing and took in the scenery opening before him. The sun had set; only a faint orange strip was visible over the horizon, dyeing the calm waters of the sea with a gentle gradient. The darkening sky overhead was speckled with stars, like tiny diamonds suspended from the heavens and reflecting the soft glow of the city lights glimmering below.

Leon breathed in the night and smiled to himself. He and Raihan both led busy lives, so it had come as a complete surprise to him when Raihan’s schedule had unexpectedly cleared up and all of his own meetings at the Battle Tower had gotten postponed. But he certainly hadn’t minded it at all. Was there anything better than suddenly having an entire day to spend together?

And what a day it had been!

A lazy morning, cuddling in bed with no rush to get up, cooking an elaborate breakfast together and eating on the back porch in the sunshine while their Pokémon played in the backyard: perfect!

A day spent training in the Wild Area, a picnic break featuring Raihan’s amazing homemade lunch boxes, some window-shopping hand in hand before heading back home: perfect!

An evening filled with laughter and amazing food at the fancy new restaurant in Hammerlocke, all the while sharing inconspicuous, affectionate touches under the tablecloth and openly flirting with each other for the entire duration of their dinner as if they hadn’t been an item for the better part of a decade already: perfect!

And then, to Leon’s continued surprise, Raihan had hailed a Flying Taxi and they had flown to Hulbury for the annual end-of-summer festival. Leon had never been to the festival before, but he had always wanted to go. He had watched dozens of videos of Hulbury’s world-famous fireworks displays, and he may have gushed to Raihan about the magnificent pyrotechnic tours de force, the demonstrations of pure artistic talent, the greatest marvels in all of Galar – nay, the whole world – more than once. And now he was going to see it in person!

After looking around the festival grounds, they had climbed on a hill to an out-of-the-way lookout point as per Raihan’s suggestion. He had reasoned that they would have an unobstructed view from a high vantage point, and it seemed like he had been correct. Leon noted that there even was a bench they could sit on to watch the fireworks. Perfect!

The day truly had been perfect in every possible way, Leon thought giddily.

Ah, but who was he kidding – every moment he got to spend with Raihan, no matter how mundane, was perfect. It was like he fell in love with Raihan again every single day. Maybe it was a sappy thought to have, but it was true.

“Lee?”

Leon glanced over his shoulder. Raihan had stopped a few paces behind him, intently looking at him instead of the spectacular view. It brought a bashful smile and a pleased blush to Leon’s face. “Yeah?”

“I, uh…” Raihan swallowed and wrung his hands as he searched for words to say.

Leon took a step away from the railing and turned fully toward Raihan, puzzled. It was rare to see him acting so… nervous?

Why was he - -?

“What’s your stance on marriage?” Raihan blurted out.

Leon stared, stunned. He blinked a few times in surprise while his brain caught up and processed the words.

Marriage. That’s what Raihan had said, right? Marriage. _Marri- -_

His brain went from buffering to overdrive in zero seconds flat.

“ _What?!_ ” Leon shrieked, bewildered, his heart pounding out of his chest. “Are you proposing?!”

Raihan flinched and his eyes went wide with shock, and Leon couldn’t blame him for any of that. He knew he had probably sounded a tad too distressed, considering that the possibility of _this_ really happening right here and now made him so insanely happy. The stage was set for the proposal of his dreams!

But… What kind of opening line was _that_ supposed to be?! It certainly was… Well… Perhaps a bit ineloquent and entirely different from the ones Leon had daydreamed of, but - -

Leon shook his head. That’s not what’s important here! Everything up until now had been perfect; there was no way he would let such a tiny detail bother him! His eyes frantically darted to Raihan’s hands, but his boyfriend wasn’t holding a small box or an Applin or anything of the sort.

His heart sank.

“I-I’m not!” Raihan stammered, visibly panicking, once he had regained enough of his composure to speak again. “I just… wanted to know if it’s something you’d want. Getting married, that is. To me. Um.” He paused for a moment, rubbed the back of his neck and continued warily, “Because I… I would like to marry you.” The intonation of his words almost made the statement sound like a question.

“ _Of course_ it’s something I want!” Leon replied, extremely flustered and, frankly, a bit disappointed that Raihan had even felt the need to ask such a thing. He hid his reddened face in his hands for a few distraught moments. Calm down, Leon. Calm down. This was not a good way to react. There was no reason to freak out this bad and make Raihan worry. Once he was sure he was able to keep his voice steady, he let his hands fall away and looked Raihan in the eyes. “I love you, Rai. I would like nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with you and, yes, get married. I thought that much was obvious.”

The sigh Raihan let out sounded relieved, but the words following it were hasty and faltering. “You never know. Some people see no point in getting married. ‘We don’t need rings and an expensive ceremony to know that we’re committed to each other’ kind of deal, you know.” He stepped closer and took Leon’s hands in his. “We… haven’t really talked about that kind of stuff.”

“I… I suppose you’re right.” In all honesty, it hadn’t even crossed Leon’s mind to sit down and… _talk_ about it. That’s not how it had worked in all the rom-coms he had joyfully binged over the years while comfortably snuggled up to Raihan on the couch. “It’s just… I guess I wanted to propose, or be proposed to, properly. I mean…” After a brief silence, he continued sullenly, “Now it won’t be a surprise, you know? And the surprise element is what makes it so… special.”

“But it’s good to know that we’re both game for it, that there’s a mutual agreement beforehand, right?” Raihan asked sensibly, albeit with an edge of awkwardness in his voice.

Leon couldn’t help feeling a bit silly. He knew that while he himself had sort of a one-track mind and a tendency to act spontaneously, even recklessly at times, Raihan was quite the opposite. He liked to think things through and carefully consider how to approach every situation; he had always been a very practical person. So practical, in fact, that he wanted to know what Leon would like for dinner a week in advance so that he could efficiently meal-prep on his days off. This wasn’t out of character at all.

“Yeah,” Leon conceded and pouted. He recognized that Raihan had made some extremely fair points, but still… He sighed. “But it’s not as romantic that way,” he added stubbornly.

Raihan nodded in understanding and gave Leon’s hands a comforting squeeze. After a short time, his shoulders slumped and he heaved a sigh of his own. “This isn’t helping. You’re upset.”

Now that the initial shock and surprise had faded, Leon reckoned that ‘upset’ was perhaps the most accurate word for describing his current mental state. No use denying it. “Yeah, kinda,” he admitted and bowed his head.

“I’m so sorry, love. I really am.” Raihan wrapped his arms around Leon and pulled him close. “This isn’t how this was supposed to go,” he mumbled into Leon’s shoulder. “I totally screwed up.”

“It’s okay. I know it wasn’t your intention,” Leon said reassuringly and hugged Raihan back tightly. In the end, he had no real reason to be upset. He loved Raihan and Raihan loved him and they both wanted to get married, so what did it matter that this one little thing hadn’t gone exactly like he had imagined?

After several long moments, Leon slowly drew back from the embrace and lifted his gaze to meet Raihan’s eyes again. “And you’re right. Maybe we should’ve talked about this sooner.” He paused. For the longest time, he had thought that engagement was the natural next step in their relationship and thus assumed that it would happen eventually without him needing to be vocal about it, but… They had been together for nearly eight years and living together for five, since Leon’s retirement as Champion. Was that a long time to go without a proposal or even discussing marriage? It was, wasn’t it? Was that why Raihan had been so unsure that he had just… _asked_ like that, blunt and direct? Leon could feel an embarrassed flush rising to his cheeks. Maybe his preferences hadn’t been _that_ obvious, after all. “Or at least I could’ve, like, dropped hints or something. So… I’m also partially at fault.”

Raihan opened his mouth to speak, as if he was going to protest, but then he let out a long sigh instead. His eyes were brimming with affection when he cupped Leon’s face in his hands. “I’ll make it up to you, okay? I will find a way.”

“Okay,” Leon replied meekly. It wouldn’t be the same, but it’s the thought that counted.

Raihan leaned in to press a fleeting kiss on his cheek, then a slightly longer one on his lips. “I love you,” he whispered sweetly.

In an instant, Leon’s frown had melted away. Hearing those words still made his heart race and brightened his mood without fail. “I love you, too”, he replied, his lips brushing against Raihan’s. And as Leon closed the near-nonexistent space between them once more, he could feel Raihan’s smile blooming against his own.

And Raihan refused to let him go; he simply kept kissing Leon, deep and slow this time, and Leon kept kissing him back.

Once they broke apart, Leon asked breathlessly, “How come your kisses _still_ make me weak in the knees every time?”

The question elicited a gentle peal of laughter from Raihan. “Should we go sit down, then?” he asked and nodded toward the bench Leon had taken note of earlier. “You can rest your delicate knees.”

Leon rolled his eyes but couldn’t keep a mirthful chuckle from escaping his mouth. It quickly transformed into a startled yelp and then a full-on giggle when Raihan wrapped his arms tightly around his upper body and, using their height difference to his advantage, easily lifted him off his feet and began carrying him to the bench. “Show-off,” Leon huffed as Raihan carefully set him down.

Raihan took a seat to his left. “I’ve a demanding audience to impress,” he noted mischievously and promptly softened his playful jab by stealing one more quick kiss from Leon’s smiling lips.

But could it even be called stealing when Leon had been expecting it and readily kissed him back?

A brief, comfortable silence fell over them, during which Raihan worried his lower lip and fiddled with the sleeves of his jacket like he often did whenever he was thinking really hard about something. “So,” he drawled at length, “what kind of romantic surprise proposal would you have wanted? Maybe we can still pull it off.”

Leon laughed a little. “We can’t. It won’t be a surprise since the both of us would be expecting it from now on. And it doesn’t matter how it happens…” He trailed off. Well, it _did_ matter, just a bit. But he could live without experiencing a tooth-rottingly romantic proposal – as long as the wedding was ridiculously extravagant to compensate, that is. He had decided to maintain at least some semblance of standards and absolute stubbornness.

“Just tell me. I wanna know.” Even in the dim glow of the stars and the city lights, Raihan’s eyes were as bright as ever when he tenderly looked at Leon. “Please?”

Leon exhaled loudly through his nose. His proposal daydreams were embarrassingly cheesy, but… Over the past eight years, he and Raihan had had conversations on subjects that were way more embarrassing than this. “Okay, fine.” He folded his hands on his lap and was quiet for a moment before he began, “Here’s one scenario… Spending the day together with no rush, no obligations – just the two of us, enjoying each other’s company. Maybe going on a stroll, hand in hand, or a lunch date… Or having a quiet day at home with no predetermined plans, just relaxing and going with the flow. Something simple like that.”

“I see.” Raihan directed a contemplative look at Leon, head tilted, waiting for him to go on. “Laying the groundwork, so to speak. And then?” he coaxed when Leon didn’t continue.

Leon could feel his face growing warm. This is where the cheesiness truly began. “An intimate candlelit dinner… You know, a nice three-course meal, playing footsie under the table, the whole shebang.”

Raihan was nodding along to his boyfriend’s words, the fond smile on his face widening. “Classic.”

“And _then_ … Something to set the mood for the main event, like…” Leon let his voice taper off into silence.

“A Pokémon battle?” Raihan offered teasingly.

“No!” Leon giggled and playfully elbowed Raihan. “Well, maybe. But I was thinking more like… Watching the sunset together, or a brilliant starry night sky… And…” Now his face was burning like there was no tomorrow. He would never admit to harboring such foolish, improbable fancies to anyone else. “If I may be _just a bit_ greedy, perhaps even a meteor shower or - -”

The rest of Leon’s sentence was drowned out by a sudden explosion of sound and color. He and Raihan both startled as the dreamlike serenity that had enveloped them was so abruptly broken, and both of their gazes were immediately drawn to the sky.

Raihan held back a chuckle. “Fireworks, maybe?” he suggested.

Leon laughed gaily and nodded. “That’d work splendidly, too.”

An awed silence fell over the pair as they watched the fireworks display, the myriad of colors lighting up the night, blooming amid the darkness and reflecting off the surface of the sea, burning brightly and fading in the space of a heartbeat as they rained down… Funnily enough, it had completely slipped Leon’s mind that _this_ was why they had come up here in the first place. But he was glad they had. No video would ever do it justice.

Raihan slightly shifted in his seat. “So… You would’ve wanted something like today?” he asked cautiously.

Leon glanced over and found Raihan regarding him with a small, knowing smile quirking his lips. He returned Raihan’s smile and transferred his gaze back to the sky. “Yeah,” he breathed, content.

Indeed. With or without a proposal to top off the evening, they had had such a wonderful, unforgettable day together. And that was the most important thing, Leon mused; making beautiful memories and spending quality time with the love of his life.

Even without looking, Leon easily found Raihan’s right hand which was resting on the bench between them. He took it in his and twined their fingers together. “A day like today, culminating in a moment just like this…”

Raihan made an absentminded sound of assent and Leon mentally kicked himself. Just last week, when he had met up with Sonia for their bi-monthly afternoon tea downtown, he had happened to see a lovely pair of rings on display in the jeweler’s window. If only he hadn’t put off coming up with a discreet way to figure out Raihan’s ring size, he could have bought them right then and there like Sonia had urged him to. But he had put it off, so he hadn’t been able to buy them. What a wasted opportunity.

Then again… If Leon was completely honest with himself, he _was_ a hopeless romantic, so most of his daydreams had been about being proposed to instead of being the one proposing himself. Maybe that’s why he had been procrastinating for so long.

Not taking his eyes off the sparks dancing across the sky, Leon leaned his head on Raihan’s shoulder with a sigh. “This would have been perfect, wouldn’t it?” he whispered and couldn’t quite keep the touch of sadness out of his voice.

“It would,” Raihan agreed quietly and brought their intertwined hands to his lips. He kissed the back of Leon’s hand, unlaced their fingers in one fluid motion and adjusted his hold so that Leon’s hand was resting across his palm. “And it is,” he added as he slipped something on Leon’s finger.

It took Leon a few seconds to register what had happened. And when he turned to look at his hand, it took an additional half a dozen seconds for him to comprehend what he was seeing.

A ring. On his finger. On the ring finger of his left hand. The very same ring he had admired the previous week. An engagement ring, sparkling beautifully as it caught the light of the fireworks.

When Leon finally found his voice, his brain wasn’t quite ready to form coherent thoughts yet. “Wha- -? How - -?” He lifted his gaze to Raihan’s face. “ _Huh?!_ ”

“Surprise,” Raihan said with a soft, coy smile. “So, is your answer still the same? Will you marry me?”

“Rai…” Leon breathed, overwhelmed and overjoyed. He almost objected and reminded Raihan that you’re supposed to ask that _before_ casually putting rings on people’s fingers – but Raihan had done just that, hadn’t he? He had been so unbelievably smooth. He had successfully managed to not only have a practical conversation about it first but also surprise Leon with a romantic gesture afterward. What a fool-proof plan it had been! Leon couldn’t stop the tears trickling down his face and the laughter bubbling up from his heart. Just when had his boyfriend gotten so clever and cunning? “Of course I will marry you, you sneaky son of a gun,” he finally managed and, wasting no more time, threw his arms around Raihan’s shoulders. He pressed their lips together once more, humming contentedly when Raihan parted his and deepened the kiss.

“Was that surprising and romantic enough for you, my prince?” Raihan smirked into Leon’s mouth, out of breath.

Leon responded by pulling his fiancé – _fiancé!_ – down for another kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> \+ later that night:  
> raihan, lying in bed in the arms of a very satisfied leon: (the plan was very simple and going swimmingly, but _no_ , you had to be a disaster-level dumbass. “what’s your stance on marriage”? seriously, raihan? that’s not what we rehearsed… and then getting startled by his reaction and denying the whole thing? grow a spine, dude… i can’t believe i somehow managed to salvage the situation after almost messing everything up right at the start… i truly am the greatest… the master of improvisation…)  
> leon: whatcha thinking about?  
> raihan: how love can overcome any obstacle…  
> leon: ?
> 
> (he’ll eventually tell leon and leon will laugh and smooch him and be like “yeah, that checks out”)
> 
> let me know what you think i guess. peace ooouuuttt


End file.
